CASE STUDY
“When we tested the
FortiGate® network security
device together with
FortiManager console,
we realized that we had
found the right solution,
both in terms of ease of
configuration, and for
monitoring and updating all
machines.”
– Michele Fini
EMEA IT Manager
QubicaAMF
Details
Customer Name: QubicaAMF
Industry: Other
Location: Italy (Headquarters)
QubicaAMF provides bowling centers with safety
and remote technical support via Fortinet solutions
Introduction
QubicaAMF Worldwide is a leading manufacturer and marketer
of bowling and amusements products. With over 100 years of
combined experience in the bowling and amusements industries, it offers a
complete line of innovative, quality solutions for bowling and Family Entertainment
Centers.
The company was officially set up on June 14, 2005, when industry leaders
AMF Bowling Products and Qubica Worldwide decided to join forces. Qubica, a
relatively young Company, was founded in 1993 in Bologna, and was able to grow
exponentially in just a few years, thanks to the development of its very innovative
and high-tech Bowler Entertainment System and Conqueror Pro centralized
management system. On its side, AMF has revolutionized the bowling industry a
number of times, from the invention and production of the first automatic pinspotter
in 1946, to the creation of the first automated scoring system more than 30 years
ago, just to name a few.
Synergies between the two companies, one younger, high-tech, innovative and
technology driven, and the other widely experienced both on mechanical and
electromechanical bowling products (pinspotters, ball returns, lanes, etc.) and
consumers products (house balls, pins, rental shoes, etc.), enabled the new
company to succeed with shared objectives.
Challenges
nnQubica
needed to establish a secure
communication channel for technical
support without interfering with any
other systems that were in place within
the network
nnQubica
wanted a scalable and flexible
solution that could ensure technical
support worldwide and that could easily
be adapted to customers’ needs
Objectives
nnTo
find a solution that could satisfy a
wide range of infrastructures
nnTo
increase IT security, management
and control
Deployment
nnFortiManager®
nnFortiGate-300C
nnFortiGate-20C
nnFortiGate-40C
nnFortiGate-60C
1
CASE STUDY: QubicaAMF
QubicaAMF’s strategy is to develop new products and
solutions for the bowling industry, thanks to an impressive
Research & Development team, employing over 50 people
full-time.
QubicaAMF employs 100 people in Bologna and about
400 in the United States, plus some commercial offices in
Europe. The company’s mission is to work together with its
customers, the owners of bowling centers, to develop their
business with innovative solutions leading to an ever-new
and fun bowling experience.
The Challenge
The Italian headquarters of the company develops
Conqueror Pro software, the core of QubicaAMF solutions,
which manage all activities within the bowling center: games
booking and scoring as well as accessory activities, such as
loyalty cards, bar orders and electronic payments.
To ensure remote accessibility and offer technical support
for the safe management of software updates, QubicaAMF
decided to implement within these centers a firewallprotected network to allow safe connection between the
Conqueror Pro in bowling centers and the QubicaAMF
central systems. The goal was to establish a secure
communication channel for technical support without
interfering with any other systems that were in place within
the network. A proprietary firewall, developed internally, has
thus been used for a few years. Over time, however, the
company decided to adopt a standard solution.
“We evaluated solutions from leading market players
because we wanted a scalable and flexible solution that
could ensure technical support worldwide and that could
easily be adapted to our customers’ needs. In most cases
bowling centers have small networks, but there are also
customers with large chains that have rather complex and
sophisticated networks. We therefore needed a solution that
could satisfy a wide range of infrastructures. For QubicaAMF,
customer attention is paramount and we try to offer the
most suitable solution according to their different needs,”
said Michele Fini, QubicaAMF EMEA IT Manager.
The Solution
Ease of use, especially the FortiManager® centralized
management console that lets you install updates and
monitor all firewalls installed in bowling centers around the
world, was the key factor that drove the choice of Fortinet.
“When we tested the FortiGate® network security device
together with FortiManager console, we realized that
we had found the right solution, both in terms of ease
of configuration, and for monitoring and updating all
machines,” continued Michele Fini.
In 2012, the technological choice was made in two months
by comparing the various solutions on the market. Within
a couple of months the prototype was developed, then
two centers were selected, one in Italy and one in England,
for the initial tests with customers. After ensuring that the
solution was working as expected, further tests on one
British and one German center were carried out. Within one
month, three different pilot centers, using different services,
had been tested. “Two months after the first installations we
kicked off the final product, which has since become the
standard,” explained Fini.
The Fortinet solution is now used worldwide by QubicaAMF.
From choosing the solution to the actual implementation, it
took only six months. The drive for change came from Italy,
but since the technical support services are also located in
the United States to follow local customers, it was decided
to extend the solution there, after implementing it in Europe.
Fortinet products were also implemented in QubicaAMF
corporate headquarters.
Vem, Fortinet’s partner, was central to QubicaAMF both in
choosing the solution, once the needs were identified, and
in supporting the project, from the analysis to the prototype.
“One of the main objectives of the QubicaAMF project was
the integration between distributed and heterogeneous
environments and centralized systems, which provide the
services,” said Alessandro Boschetti, VEM sistemi Security
and IT governance Team Leader. “For VEM it was a very
important challenge because it allowed us to put all our
expertise in the delivery and analysis stages of the project as
well as in the area of secure networking.”
QubicaAMF has installed in Bologna two Fortinet’s
FortiGate-300 network security appliances in high availability,
which are the hubs of the various networks. In the bowling
centers, however, different appliance models have been
implemented: from the FortiGate-20C to -40C and -60C,
depending on the size of the centers, all centrally managed
through the FortiManager console. The centers feature a
site-to-site link to QubicaAMF venues and therefore are
accessible from the internal network for remote technical
support and Conqueror software upgrade. In addition, the
firewall handles traffic to the Internet for the web services
provided by the centers and the protection of credit card
transactions.
“We now offer new services that have been released
recently, such as Facebook GameConnect, which publishes
the results on Facebook in real time while you are bowling,
2
CASE STUDY: QubicaAMF
in addition to the usual web reservation and online score
services. All is transmitted through VPN,” Fini added.
At present, there are about 50 firewalls in the world
managed by FortiManager and QubicaAMF expects an
average of one hundred installations per year, including new
customers or replacements of old firewalls.
QubicaAMF also uses Fortinet systems for internet-based
VPN connections among its offices: this is a side project
that takes advantage of the same technology. It includes
three locations in the United States, one in Mexico, one in
Italy, one in France, one in UK and in the Netherlands, in
addition to the ERP management system hosting provider,
also located in the United States. Significant savings on
networking costs to connect the various locations - these
were previously based on private networks - were achieved
without sacrificing the information reliability and safety.
High-availability FortiGate-300C appliances have been
implemented in main venues in Italy and the USA, while
the FortiGate-60C has been adopted for smaller offices,
resulting in about 280,000 dollars savings per year on costs
for connecting the various venues.
The FortiGate-300C appliance offers flexibility combined
with high-performance, advanced security technologies,
including firewall, VPN, intrusion prevention, application
control, web filtering at content level, all easily manageable
from one single location. It also includes antivirus, antispam,
antimalware, vulnerability and WAN optimization control.
The FortiGate-20C, -40C and -60C appliances replicate
the same features for smaller environments, providing full
protection. The FortiManager systems offer a web-based
secure interface to manage and control the entire Fortinet
security infrastructure.
The Benefits
Thanks to the adoption of Fortinet solutions, QubicaAMF
achieved immediate savings on communication costs
among its venues, plus great benefits in terms of ease and
speed of implementation of the solutions.
“When it was decided to migrate to a hosted ERP last year,
Fortinet solutions made everything possible in a short time,
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which was not possible previously with private network
implementations. Lately, we have been able to create a
hybrid cloud leveraging the same technology: we have
connected a cloud VPN service to our venue, providing a
private space in the public cloud, that is connected to our
internal site and enabled us to install three new servers in
just a few hours,” pointed out Fini.
The key advantage coming from the adoption of Fortinet
solutions is to have enabled QubicaAMF’s technical support
to use, configure and monitor firewalls at the bowling
centers. The proprietary solution previously adopted,
although technically valid, was not user friendly. In fact, the
technical support staff found the solution extremely complex
to use both for monitoring and operating.
“Thanks to the ease of use and ease of deployment
provided by Fortinet’s products, we were able to transfer
this activity to the technical support service, which not only
deals with the installation and configuration of our software,
but also with networking, completing the installation and
monitoring the IT infrastructure at the bowling centers. This
resulted in significant savings on our technicians’ time. It
also helped to extend our ability to provide assistance,
thanks to more resources made available by extending this
activity to the technical support in the United States as well,”
continued Fini.
Fortinet solutions have enabled the creation of more
synergies. In addition, as Fortinet also offers the certification
for credit cards transaction, QubicaAMF can provide secure
transactions to its customers.
“We decided to supply the lower-end solution, in
particular the FortiGate-20C, to all bowling centers as
the management is similar to high-end products, with a
single interface, but at reasonable cost. This gives us the
opportunity to offer this solution as standard, enabling
remote technical support, improving the quality of services
offered to our customers and having, thanks to the
monitoring carried out with FortiManager, the full visibility of
our clients and any network-related problems from a single
management console,” concluded Fini.
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